xEros: Ordeal the First: Heart
by Renfield1
Summary: Warning! This is entirely for kinky Xellos fans, and contains *little more* than scenes of gratuitous nudity and/or sex, with elements of BDSM. Long-awaited ch2 now up.
1. Chapter 1

xEros: The Ordeals  
  
  
  
Ordeal the First: Heart  
  
  
  
It was one of those rare, crisp, perfectly still winter days when there wasn't a single dog hair in the hot tub, and Xellos was making the most of it, up to his shoulders in steaming water. The light, quiet fall of snow covering Wolf Pack Island was not only picturesque, but it was also helping to keep his wine properly chilled. He helped himself to another smug sip and carefully set the glass down beside the bottle.  
  
This could not possibly be more sublime, he reflected. All he needed now was perhaps a cranky sorceress, or young impressionable princess to harass. . . . He reached for the wine again, and his wandering imagination was jerked back on it's leash by the tickle of an interrogative on the fringes of his mind.  
  
"Yes?" he responded dutifully, sitting up in the bath in expectation of a communique from his creator. The sense of come strengthened, tugged at his being.  
  
It wasn't a message; it was a summons, he realized with numb dismay as the wine glass fell through his fading hand into the hot tub.  
  
What now? he sighed inwardly, resigning himself to the possible tragedy of working on a Saturday. Patiently, he waited to be tugged out of limbo and rematerialized . . . and he waited. . . .  
  
Something's not right . . . Zelas wasn't the one who summoned me—this is taking too long— He choked off his tiny sense of unease, and prepared himself to do the same to the poor human fool who'd gone to the effort of summoning him.  
  
Then he hit the wall.  
  
The relative tranquility of the astral plane gave way without warning to seething black chaos, at once blacker than pitch and blazing with brilliant gold. Suddenly Xellos knew a rare and powerful emotion: fear.  
  
Well, more like absolute terror, actually; it was one thing to see chaos incarnate, and quite another to be immersed in the raw essence itself. He clung to the slender thread of the summons in a mindless panic, drew his essential self into a rough sphere, and tried not to think too much. If he fought the spell now, or if the summoner faltered, he would be utterly eroded away by the churning brightdark, and his mind cast adrift in myriad conscious fragments, to be scattered beyond even a deity's reach and eventually absorbed . . . no more Xellos. . . .  
  
He centered himself and thought on Zelas. No mortal was more powerful than Zelas Metallium; he could not possibly have been summoned without Her endorsement. It was a comfort of sorts, to know this, but not much help when facing the sea of chaos.  
  
She could stop anyone from summoning me, if She wanted; he reflected. She—She wouldn't abandon me to oblivion. . . . The thread of the summons was very strong; he began to wonder if the hellish transition was nearly over—and then, to wonder how he would get home—and very suddenly, something happened. Afterwards he would remember only a brilliant flash, and disorientation leading to soft, familiar darkness.  
  
Something in his chest spasmed and clenched violently. Xellos slapped his hand over it with a gasp, and found himself lying curled on sunbaked stone, nude and still wet from the bath. He gasped again—his sense of touch seemed fifty times as acute as it had been: he could feel every detail of the fresh, deep glyphs carved into the stone beneath him, he could feel the sea breeze licking the moisture from his skin . . it was not winter, in this place. Shakily, he got to his hands and knees, still gasping and coughing. He could see blue veins through the skin on the backs of his hands, and suddenly several things made sense at once.  
  
Of course! I'm in a human body! He took a moment to steady his breathing. That's why everything feels so sharp; the stupid sorceror summoned me into his own body—  
  
--Except, the purple fringe at the borders of his vision was his own. . . .  
  
Sandals slapped against stone, and there was a sudden mild constriction around his throat.  
  
"Gotcha!" a female voice declared. He jerked his head up.  
  
"What--" He pulled himself to his feet, still distracted by his new heartbeat. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded.  
  
She came up to his nose, and had curling blond hair very much like Zelas'. Her blouse was made of something like black silk, cut in that skintight way that revealed as much as it concealed, and her skirt was a simple, knee-length wrap of gold cloth. Behind her he could see pale dunes rolling into the ocean, through a handful of wind-shaped trees.  
  
"I am Mistress," she introduced herself. As much as that meant to him.  
  
So, I am still on an island. . . . He reached up to whatever-it-was she'd put on his neck, and was shocked when she slapped his hands away.  
  
"Don't touch that," she said sharply. "And don't speak, either."  
  
Xellos was not in the mood to deal with this (as he saw it) weird bull. He reached out and clasped her throat in one hand.  
  
"Why have you summoned me here?" he asked directly.  
  
"Let go," she gasped, struggling to remove his arm. "Let go of me!"  
  
"Tell me," he prompted, squeezing very gently. She gasped, gritted her teeth, and suddenly he felt a stinging sensation on his chest. He looked down—she had pricked him with a small feathered dart. He plucked it loose with his free hand, just before she pulled her neck from his grip.  
  
"What's this?" he asked, glancing at the dart. His limbs felt strange. "What the hell do you want from me? Why am I here?" He stepped toward her and nearly lost his balance.  
  
Poison. . . ? He crumpled to his knees, examining the dart again. Yes, the tip had been painted. "Why am I here?" he repeated, gasping with the sudden effort to stay upright, conscious. His body felt tremendously heavy and stiff. What was that look on her face? "What do you want from me . . ?" he begged, before he lost the ability to speak. All he could feel now was the carved stone under one side of his face, and the wind against the other side. The last thing he remembered, dimly, was being lifted. . . .  
  
He could feel his heart beating, and the slow pumping of his lungs, but he was still terrified.  
  
Zelas, I'm human. Not in possession of a body, but embodied. . . . And Zelas, if I'm human, if I'm mortal, I could die. . . .  
  
The world was coming back, slowly. He could feel a smooth hard surface underneath him.  
  
He could not feel Zelas. He searched his mind thoroughly, repeatedly, then frantically, but all the links were gone as if they had never been.  
  
Oh no . . . oh no, oh no no no. . . . Zelas had no hold on him, now; he could not be reclaimed in an emergency, and if he were to die, he could not be rebuilt . . . at least, not from this version of himself.  
  
His body was coming back, slowly. He lay half on his face in a gray- white room, and groggily levered himself to his knees.  
  
Wait a minute, Xellos; don't panic yet—you know that Zelas-sama wouldn't let you out of her sight like that, not when she's pleased with you. You probably can't sense her anymore because you're human. She's probably watching you right now, having a good laugh.  
  
Of course. Xellos blinked. His arms were bound behind him somehow, and his neck—that must be some sort of collar on his throat—was tethered with a leash of sturdy black leather to a ring embedded in the floor. He wore nothing else. She would certainly find the situation hilarious.  
  
"Very funny, Zelas-sama," he muttered, looking around. The whole room was the same bland color; there were no windows or doors that he could see; the ceiling was the only source of light, and as a mere human, he could not tell if its pale, steady glow was magical or alchemical in nature. He tried to stand and was immediately jerked to his knees again—the leash was too short. He was not allowed to stand upright. Even standing directly over the ring in the floor, he was still bent forward uncomfortably.  
  
This is absurd. What possible purpose could it serve? He gave up the awkward pacing and sat back down on the cold floor. He disliked being human, even for a little while; one of their most defining characteristics was they way they kept dying. Humans died all the time, in battle, in plagues, in bed—some of them simply keeled over where they stood and no one knew why.  
  
Humans die at the dinner table! he realized. They die from food poisoning and asphyxiation and knife-throwing fights! I—I could die! His head swam, and he broke out in a light cold sweat. I don't want to die! He jerked at the leash in a brief panic, then in desperation, and fell back on his knees when it held, trying not to cry. I don't want to die. Zelas, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. He jerked at the leash a few more times, just because, until it slowly dawned on him that he was not strangling on the leash—his collar was too wide and soft for that. It calmed him very slightly.  
  
Well, I never thought she was going to kill me, he remembered drily. Hah, maybe she thinks I'm dangerous! And then he remembered the percentage of human deaths that were due to mazoku activity, and began to sweat again. Following this was a thought which chilled his very marrow:  
  
Ohh Beastmaster Zelas-sama—  
  
What if she's a demon?  
  
He froze his assumptions when part of the wall opened without warning, and she stepped through, still in black and gold. She had exchanged her sandals for low boots and a wide band of leather was tucked into the sash of her skirt, but nothing else had changed.  
  
"Ah, hello—would you mind telling me--" he began cautiously.  
  
"Don't speak," she demanded, and as soon as she had crossed the room, she slapped him in the face. Not very hard; just enough to hurt.  
  
"Wh-why?" he responded automatically.  
  
"That's wrong," she said, and slapped him again. His face reddened. She caught it in her hands and made him face her. "Do you remember who I am?"  
  
He couldn't help but flinch. "You're--" –and when she did not strike him—"You're M-Mistress?" Remarkably, she smiled and stroked his hair.  
  
"Very good! Yes, that's right, and you must remember it, every time I give you permission to speak. This is your first lesson, Xellos: never speak without permission. Do you understand?"  
  
She knows my name. She meant to summon me.  
  
She was still holding his head, so he couldn't nod.  
  
"Yes. . . ."  
  
"—And who am I?"  
  
"—Mistress?"  
  
"Very good, very good." She smiled again. "Remember, every time you speak. . . . Now, I'm just going to examine you. . . ." She started with his eyes, since she was already looking at them, and gently tipped his head to see his ears, before easing his mouth open to see his teeth. Then she finally let go his head and paced around behind him. He felt her hands on his back first, then his arms. He felt her checking the restraints on his arms—they were wide, snug cuffs of leather from the wrist to the middle of the forearm, and now he felt her testing the thongs wound around them.  
  
Suddenly her hands were cupping his buttocks, hefting them with an exploratory squeeze, then her hands were sliding down his thighs. He felt her nudge his shoulder—everything tactile startled him with its immediacy; he was still unused to the human sense of touch. So when her breasts pressed against his back and her hair swept tickling over his side and her hands ran up his inner thighs, he shuddered and squirmed.  
  
"Hold still, Xellos. You'll have to get used to being handled."  
  
If he could have thought of something to say, he might have said it, except he didn't want to get hit again—and never in his life had he been in such a situation.  
  
"Ah—ah. . . . ."  
  
"Shhhh," she breathed into his ear, and her hands swept up his scrotum. "There's nothing to be afraid of," she told him before he could whimper. He felt a tight pulling in his groin, just above her handful. "Ah, very good," she said in his ear, and then to his horror she had her hands on the most sensitive part of his new body. He almost trembled. "Look at your organ, Xellos," she told him.  
  
He looked down, and his heart sank. A sexual response to sensual tactile stimuli. He was hopelessly human. She was holding him very gently, but the small stroking motions of her hands only heightened his discomfort.  
  
"Don't you think it looks better this way?" she asked with an audible smile. He had no comment. "That's the way it ought to look, do you understand?"  
  
"Mistress?"  
  
"Hard! A man's tool looks best at it's hardest," she asserted. "I want to see you in top form every day, do you understand?" She let go and leaned out to the side to look him in the face again.  
  
"M-Mistress?"  
  
"Don't worry, I'll help you," she assured him, petting his hair again. "I want to make you perfect, Xellos, and keeping you on the boil is only part of it. It will get easier in time, and hopefully . . . you'll get harder. . . ." She smiled and bent down to touch him again. Her hair fell over his back, and her hand slipped down his belly and around his shaft again. "Spread your thighs a little . . . yes, very nice." Xellos gritted his teeth; his hips were beginning to follow her hand of their own accord. "That's how it should look every day, every time I see you. It's very important, Xellos, because if you can't make me proud with a rigid member, you'll be punished. Do you understand?"  
  
Oh dear. I'm afraid I understand this game.  
  
"Yes. Mistress," he added hastily, and she let go of him. His cock throbbed miserably.  
  
"Very good, very good. . . ." She stood up and went back to petting his hair. "You're a quick learner. You've done so well today, I'll let you ask me a question now; anything you want to know."  
  
"Mistress, where am I?"  
  
"You are on an island . . so remote and legendary, that nearly everyone believes it to be mythical. This island is far into the Cemari Ocean. . . ."  
  
Cemari Ocean?  
  
". . And is on a different world entirely from the one you lived in."  
  
The words hit Xellos like a lead weight. The room seemed to fade a bit, to grow more distant somehow, and the next thing he heard was Mistress urging him to keep his head down and take slow, deep breaths. He groaned.  
  
A different world? I'm on a different world?  
  
"Oh, my poor Xellos, you're just like a newborn, aren't you? There's nothing to be afraid of, I'll take care of you," she promised. "Lie down, and I'll do something about that nasty fear." She took the strip of leather from her waist as he shakily stretched out on his face. He was still nearly trembling when the first blow came down on his back.  
  
It was an astonishing shock, the pain. Not deep or lasting, but certainly fiery and intense. He recoiled, and she put her foot on the leash, right near his neck, and struck him a few more times with equal force, spreading the blows wide.  
  
"Be still; it's for your own good," she said when he cried out at the overwhelming new sensation. He gritted his teeth against the beating and the leash, although he could not stifle a grunt of pain now and then, and prayed fervently to Zelas. From his back she progressed to his buttocks—he thought she spent an inordinate amount of time there—and down to the backs of his thighs. And when he was squirming from the pain and his skin glowed and smarted from his shoulders to his knees, she paused. He could hear her breathing in the gray-white room.  
  
"Turn over," she commanded finally, and let up on his leash so he could comply. "You see, Xellos, when you have no control over what happens to you, there is no point in fearing it," she lectured as he panted and trembled. He was still erect, somehow, and desperately hoping she wouldn't whip him there. The strap came down across his chest, and his whole body jerked. She stepped on his leash again. "And if I can't reach you with that right now, just know—that if you want to leave this room, you must learn to trust me utterly." He tried not to cry, but his eyes were already swimming as she progressed down his ribs. He could feel himself tensing and relaxing with the rhythm of her blows, but when she began to whip him across the belly, he started to curl himself up, out of fear for his genitals.  
  
"Put your legs down, damn you! Do you want me to miss?" she shouted, and he uncurled haltingly, choking back sobs. "Never do that again!" He flinched harder with every blow, fighting that defensive urge until he was actually letting his hips up toward the strap. His organ was still infernally hard, and to his amazement and relief, she passed over it entirely, striking only his naked abdomen and thighs. And just when he was beginning to think he could actually bear it, it was over.  
  
"Kneel up," she said. His skin was red and hot; his whole body was ringing. She wiped his face with a handkerchief. "You see how it is, Xellos? The more pain you're feeling, the less fear you're feeling. And pain goes away much faster than fear, doesn't it?"  
  
His head drooped. He couldn't look at her and he didn't trust himself to speak, so he simply nodded, trembling. His skin blazed. She touched his hair again.  
  
"You've done well. I'll teach you more when I come back.," she said simply. He did not see her leave, but when she was gone, he slowly slumped down on his face, pressed his burning, welted skin full-length against the cool floor, and cried his new heart out.  
  
"Zelas, I don't want to die. Zelas, take me home; I don't want to be human. . . ." he sobbed. "Zelas-sama, preserve me. . . ."  
  
Xellos was thirsty. He was hungry, too; it was the only way he could tell how long he'd been in the cell, since the ceiling light never changed, and no one else entered the room, ever. Also, it seemed to have gotten colder, somehow, so that the coolness of the floor was no longer as soothing as it had been. The length of the leash did not allow him to touch the walls at all, except by lying down and reaching very hard with his toes, or he might have tried to shelter himself in a corner. He spent most of his time kneeling and praying compulsively to Zelas-sama, sometimes letting himself shudder with terror. Once, his thoughts began to grow indistinct and scatter more and more rapidly; he began to yawn and blink, and finally he fell asleep for a while, curled small on the floor. When he awoke, the room seemed even colder. His arms ached from restraint and disuse, and his legs ached from the nearly constant kneeling.  
  
Has she forgotten me? he wondered of his Mistress. Please, Zelas- sama, don't let her forget me . . I don't want to die here—  
  
And, almost as a direct response to his prayer, he saw a pair of small boots approaching him across the floor, and whipped his head up.  
  
"Xellos, eyes down," she commanded, and automatically he snapped his head down again, returning to her boots. "Very good," she commented. "But still not perfect. You've forgotten something, Xellos." Standing in front of him, she nudged his knees further apart. "Tell me what you learned, the last time I was here, Xellos—what was the first lesson?"  
  
As he wracked his brains he realized, at the back of his head, that the nervousness he felt now was nothing compared the the anxiety he'd endured in her absence.  
  
"Tell me," Mistress prompted.  
  
"N-never speak without permission, Mistress," he answered quietly.  
  
"Very good; and what was the second lesson? The most important one? 'Always--'"  
  
Always--? He thought back furiously, mute with panic, but before he could speak, she pulled him to his knees by the ring in his collar, and began to whip him across the chest with a leather switch.  
  
"'Always keep a hard cock!'" she growled, and he whimpered at the white-hot pain she dealt across his ribs and belly, and lavished on his inner thighs. He was trying hard not to cry when she let him down; he was too thirsty already. "Repeat after me!" she instructed, still holding his collar.  
  
"Always keep a hard cock!" he gasped, forgetting her honorific, and to his dread she took hold of the organ in question and pulled him to his feet by his neck and genitals. She let go his collar and forced him to bend at the hips over her arm, her hand keeping a secure grip on his penis, and pulled him back gently until the leash was taut between his collar and the floor.  
  
"Again!" she snapped, making him spread his legs further.  
  
"Always keep a hard cock!" he repeated desperately, and felt the switch come down across his buttocks—seven quick burning stripes. Her other hand tightened on him, and he felt blood rushing to the spot.  
  
"Always, always, always keep a hard cock!" she lectured emphatically. She dealt him seven more blows, and he felt her shift her weight briefly. "Again, Xellos!"  
  
"Always keep a hard cock!" And he felt a blow from the wide leather strap she had used previously. She swung it hard and rhythmically, pulling his hips into the assault with her other handful, and as her hand tightened and tugged, and his shaft slid through her fingers with the rocking motion of the beating, he felt himself swiftly complying with the lesson. It was very little time before he was hard indeed, his member throbbing harder than his welts.  
  
"Once more, Xellos," she demanded, flogging his thighs for good measure.  
  
"Always keep a hard cock," he recited, and he could do nothing to stop the flow of his tears. When he ached more in front than in back, she let him kneel up again. He remembered on his own to keep his thighs spread and eyes down.  
  
"Very good," she said at last, and he felt her hand on his head. She tipped his face up toward hers. "Ah, don't worry, love," she murmured, wiping his eyes with her handkerchief again. "I'm not displeased with you; you learned that lesson very well. Now don't forget it! Do you remember what the third lesson was?" she asked softly.  
  
"P-pain and fear, Mistress," he sniffled.  
  
"Very good, very good," she purred, caressing his face and hair. "And what was the fourth lesson, the lesson I just taught you?"  
  
"E-eyes down?" he ventured after a pause, and she smiled.  
  
"Oh, very good, Xellos! Now you may ask me a question."  
  
His tongue nearly stuck from thirst. "Mistress, may I have—"  
  
"No." She slapped him across the face without warning. He was too stunned to respond, and simply let his gaze roll back to her boots again.  
  
"This is the fifth lesson, Xellos: never beg. Never, ever ask for anything; it is very unseemly." He trembled, and she pressed his face against the side of her thigh. He could smell her flesh—even her sex, faintly. . . . "Tell me what is wrong, and I'll make it better, do you understand?" She tipped his face up again. "Tell me your problem, Xellos."  
  
All at once, the protocol fell into place for him, and he understood.  
  
"Mistress . . . I'm very thirsty," he told her hoarsely.  
  
"Yes, I thought you would be," she said, and took a flask from inside her sash. "So I brought you some water." She uncapped the bottle and knelt down in front of him to bring it to his lips. The neck and mouth of the flask were shaped unmistakably like an erect organ, but Xellos didn't care; he drank as quickly as she permitted. And while he drank, she touched him, her free hand smoothing over his throat and chest, gently twisting his nipples and running down the muscles of his side. He was too exhausted and thirsty to squirm much when her hand came up his inner thigh to weigh and toy with his balls, and revel in his erection. He felt a sharp pang and a further hardening in his cock at her touch, and she murmured approval. By now he had finished the water, and she put away the empty flask.  
  
"Much better, Xellos. Now I'm going to handle you again—you must get accustomed to this. Kneel up--" She leaned him forward until his face and shoulders rested on the floor, with his buttocks in the air again, and spread his legs yet a little further. He whimpered. "Shh, I'm not hurting you," she reminded him. "I'm just touching . . . I'm not going to beat you, in this position." It was this assurance he found most soothing. Then he felt her hands go up his thighs again, take his buttocks tightly, and spread them. He blinked at this examination, but made no noise, and presently she moved on between his legs to knead his testicles again. Her hair tickled the inside of his thigh, and then she knelt up behind him and reached around his hips for his hard member. She pinched the tip, played briefly with the foreskin, and stroked and tickled him very gently until he moaned and rocked his hips into her hands. Then she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him backwards, to kneel upright again. He could not stop his hips from straining forward; he was miserably hard. . . .  
  
She stood up and walked a circle around him as he knelt with his head bowed and his knees splayed, pausing only to nudge his hips a little further up.  
  
"Oh, very nice," she murmured. "Delicious . . . ideal," she assessed, and stood behind him to play with his hair affectionately. "Now, I'm going to beat you again, Xellos—are you afraid?"  
  
He considered. If I say yes, she'll beat me because of it, but if I say no . . she'll still beat me, because she said she would. . . . Mistress chuckled at his silence.  
  
"See how quickly you learn? Fear is useless, in your position!" she smiled. "Now kneel up, and I'll do this quickly. . . ." She took the ring on his collar again, and keeping his chin well up, she proceeded to strap him from the front first, lingering over his nipples and thighs and striking hazardously close to the vulnerable, engorged flesh at his groin. "Beautiful, beautiful Xellos," she muttered each time her eyes fell on his rigid shaft. He winced as she covered old welts with new ones, but he could not flinch away from her assault as long as she held him up by the collar. It was almost a relief when she stepped around to cover his back . . . until her blows returned to his buttocks and thighs, which too clearly remembered the second lesson. He was gasping and fighting tears again by the time she finished; his skin burned and stung. She released his collar and he knelt helplessly, too sore and tired to squirm.  
  
"Excellent, Xellos," she told him, with her hand his bowed head again. "You've done very well. You rest now, and I'll teach you more, next time. Remember your lessons, now; don't disappoint me!" And she walked away and was gone.  
  
Xellos sniffled. He might have pressed his raw skin against the cool floor again, except that it was his only protection from the temperature of the room, which he was certain had dropped since he first awoke. Instead he bent forward, leaned his forehead on the floor between his spread knees, and rested as he was told.  
  
Zelas-sama, thank You—don't let her forget me. I'm so hungry, Zelas- sama. I don't want to die; I don't want to be forgotten. . . .  
  
Having experienced the insensible thoughtlessness of human sleep, he sought it again and again, only to find each time he awoke that the room had chilled further, and his starved muscles had fallen asleep or cramped again. He sat curled into a ball on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest, and forced himself to memorize his "lessons."  
  
And if she lets me ask a question again, what will I ask? he mused, and very quickly he had a thousand questions ready. I hope she brings food next time; I'm so hungry. . . . Zelas-sama, I'm not actually looking forward to her next visit, am I? he wondered of his own thoughts.  
  
But his cell was large and cold, silent and unchanging, and he was very hungry and helpless. Xellos hung his head.  
  
Is this a punishment, Zelas-sama? Have I done something wrong? Oh, take me back and I will never fail You again. . . .  
  
. . . Can You hear me, Zelas-sama--?  
  
He was now aching and lightheaded with hunger, and dizzy with thirst. How long had he been in this room, now, two days? Three? He sat shivering and reciting his lessons to himself, in between intense prayers to Zelas-sama. The second lesson seemed the most difficult to him, so far—as a mazoku, all his sexual functions had been completely thought- controlled—by thoughts such as "I think I'll screw this human." Now he required a stimulus; thinking himself erect would take considerably more effort. He knelt up with his knees spread to practice, as if performing a meditation exercise.  
  
First he envisioned Mistress, as clearly as he could: her keen brown eyes, her spun-gold hair, her small ripe nipples clearly outlined in the fabric of her blouse. . . . Then he envisioned her as Zelas—Zelas with mystery-laden eyes and larger, obviously divine breasts, standing over him with the strap in her hand.  
  
He felt a familiar twinge at his groin; it seemed to be working.  
  
Next he imagined Mistress-Zelas smiling, drawing him closer, to the sublime haven of her cleavage, and his physical response was immediate and pronounced. He looked down at his organ.  
  
Well, not bad . . but I can do better. Zelas, this is really uncomfortable. He shut his eyes, settled his weight, and concentrated again. Mistress would be handling him again; she spoke as if it would happen very often in the future. And when she handled him—  
  
It was at this moment that he felt a faint breeze of warm air, and suddenly heard the woman herself approaching. His heart leaped and his eyes snapped open, but he remembered to keep them down. His member only swelled and hardened further, and he tipped his hips forward hopefully.  
  
"Oh, Xellos, well done, very good!" he heard her say. "You remembered! Can you tell me everything I've taught you, now?"  
  
"N-never speak without permission, Mistress," he began, rather timidly. "Always keep a hard cock. Pain as a means of dissuading fear; eyes down; never beg . . Mistress," he listed nervously, and nearly winced when she touched his hair.  
  
"Excellent!" she exclaimed. "Perfect! You ought to be rewarded. Are you very hungry, Xellos?"  
  
"Yes, Mistress," he nearly sighed with relief.  
  
"Well, you'll be glad; I brought you something nice. . . ." And on the floor between his knees she placed a grape.  
  
Xellos blinked at it.  
  
It was on the floor. He would have to eat it off the floor.  
  
He leaned forward and drooped slowly over the grape.  
  
"If you don't want it, I'll just step on it, and you won't have to eat it," Mistress offered, sensing his hesitation. His face burned, and his eyes brimmed. To have to eat . . off the floor. . . . With a uniquely graceful motion, he bowed forward and silently picked up the grape. His eyes spilled over, and he kept his head down.  
  
And now I am a tamed mazoku. A broken man.  
  
"Ah, well done, love," Mistress said quietly, and put down another grape in the same spot. Feeling effectively destroyed, he took the second one a little less slowly than the first. She made him eat five more grapes in this fashion until he could not eat any more, and simply turned his head to the side and sobbed into his knee. Surprisingly, she knelt down in front of him and tucked his head into her shoulder.  
  
"There, there, you'll get used to it. It's not so bad. Trust me, and you'll see when you leave this room. . . . Just let it out," she murmured, cradling his head and rocking him slightly.  
  
Xellos broke. He wept with nearly no sound, with hard, shuddering sobs; he cried harder than he had ever cried before, as hard as he supposed it was possible for a mortal to cry. And when he was finally spent, dizzy and exhausted with his legs fallen asleep, his Mistress was still holding him. He savored the heat and scent from her body.  
  
"Are you cold, Xellos?" she asked him gently. "Should I warm you up?"  
  
He nodded miserably against her shoulder.  
  
"Well, lie down, then," she told him; he knew what was coming, and still could not stamp out the streak of fear under his resignation and weary apathy. He lay down on his face and tried not to shiver.  
  
The pain of the beating seemed a small price to pay for the heat it brought to his skin, and his Mistress seemed to know this already, the way she plied the leather strap. His erection bent against the cold floor, so hard it felt almost like a foreign object projecting from his body, and he realized that for the first time he was not trembling from fear.  
  
I hope she takes me out of here, he prayed as she made him turn over. If she leaves me, I'm going to die. . . . And with that thought in mind, he submitted as well as he knew how, and quietly accepted the heat she dealt him. His skin burned and simmered, and for a while he felt no need to shiver.  
  
She seemed to have finished beating him, as she put away the strap, but she did not let him up yet. Then, to his confusion and dismay, she took out the fine, stinging leather switch, and put her foot on the leash again, to hold his collar down. Bending down over him, she gently took the sensitive head of his cock in one hand, and with the other . . she whipped him across the rigid shaft itself.  
  
Xellos gasped loudly and his whole body jerked as he forced himself not to coil into a ball—that would only anger her. Sharp, intense shocks of pain radiated up his belly and down his legs, and he shuddered violently at both the nauseating agony and the effort of overcoming his defense instincts. Quickly and delicately, she switched his straining organ from above and below, and released him. He groaned, still trying not to writhe from the new pain, and she pulled him up into a kneeling position.  
  
"There, Xellos, you've done very well," she praised him, holding his face as he moaned and trembled and his sore cock swelled. "I'm only going to handle you now, do you understand?"  
  
Keeping his face well down, he nodded.  
  
She touched him everywhere. And everywhere she touched, the soreness seemed lessened, the cold seemed thawed, and he nearly lost himself in the sheer sensation of it. She giggled and he was surprised to hear himself give a grunt of pleasure as her hands smoothed over his reddened thighs and buttocks. When they came down his belly and stroked with a gentle, silken touch at his swollen, smarting member, he moaned, and moaned again when she finished with a light, adoring massage of his neck and jaw, tipping his head back to see his face.  
  
"Ahh, beautiful Xellos," she sighed. "You've done brilliantly. You should be rewarded." And before he realized what she was doing, she bent down and kissed him on the mouth.  
  
Shocked, he responded with automatic passion, with all the fevered desperation she had inspired in him. Her lips were sweet and perfect and he wanted more, as if they were made of sherbet; but she pulled her face away too soon, and he was reduced again to admiring her boots.  
  
It was another shock to him, less pleasant, to see them walk away from him. Panicked, he whipped his head up in time to feel a faint warm breeze and see an aperture in the wall closing after her.  
  
"M-Mistress," he whimpered.  
  
The room was considerably colder now.  
  
Xellos had given up fighting it; he had abandoned the struggle for anything but body heat, and even that was seeping away from him. He lay in a tight curl on his side, as he had for uncountable hours now, letting himself drift along the margins of consciousness.  
  
Zelas preserve me, I think I'm going to die, he thought dimly. . . If she was pleased with me, why did she leave me behind? Zelas, why did You let me be summoned for this . . ?  
  
The arm on the side he lay on was very numb; it hurt him to move, and it hurt him to not move . . and while not-moving hurt marginally less, it also conserved heat and calories. So he did not move, even when it proved too much effort to remain curled so tightly. His head swam and spun through a dreamy state of half-sleep.  
  
i wish i weren't so thirsty. . . . i wish . . . i wish i were mazoku again . . . . Zelas, i wish i were at home, why do i have to be human and die? am i such a disgrace, Zelas-sama? His thoughts overlaced and spliced each other, broke off short and meandered into several different veins at once, all talking over each other and generally not behaving like normal thoughts.  
  
. . . Mistress, why did you leave me behind . . ? he wondered, before he gave up thought entirely.  
  
Someone was standing over him. He felt pressure on his arm: he was being touched. Xellos tried to open his eyes, to sit up somehow, but everything was so heavy and stiff. . . .  
  
dead am i dead . . ? he wondered through a dense haze.  
  
"Xellos," she said clearly, and he knew her voice. She was pulling at him now, and he wanted to cooperate, but it was terribly hard to move.  
  
--Mistress! he remembered with a burst of desperation, and tried to force his starved, dry body to move for her. Suddenly he felt a soft sweet heat against his face, and the smell of her flesh was as good as that of freshly baked bread.  
  
"Xellos, do you want to leave this place?" Were these her words, or his thoughts?  
  
"Yes, yes, Mistress," he moaned into her bosom, nearly sobbing.  
  
"Do you want me to take you somewhere else?"  
  
"Please, Mistress," he begged. Was this a dream? Were her arms really around him? A sharp ache in his shoulders made him groan, and he realized she had unbound his wrists. His arms were almost unbearably sore.  
  
"All right, Xellos . . . there's just one thing I want you to do for me, first," she said, buckling the cuffs on his wrists together in front of him. "I want you to give me a kiss."  
  
Immediately he kissed her on the neck, because that was where his face rested at the moment.  
  
"No, not there," she smiled, released him, and stood. "I want you to kiss me here, Xellos. Then we can go." She presented the top of her small brown boot.  
  
He went down on his elbows without hesitation. It was made of fine suede, and softer than he expected. He actually managed to kiss it twice before she pulled his head up.  
  
"Excellent, Xellos. Now we're going to leave." And she fastened a blindfold around his head. Had he been healthier, he might have been disoriented, but now he simply sat in the dark. Almost automatically, his hands drifted up towards his face—  
  
"Don't touch," Mistress corrected him quickly, and immediately he let his hands drop. He felt her unfasten his leash from the floor, and his heart leaped.  
  
I'm not going to die! Oh, Zelas, I'm getting out. . . . He felt lightheaded. She took him by his collar and wrists, and with a mighty heave she pulled him upright and draped him over her back. He had no resistance left to offer, and felt a blessing of warm air sweep over him as he lost consciousness. 


	2. Chapter 2

  
  


Xellos came awake slowly. He felt weightlessness . . . water . . up to his neck-his neck- 

_--Trapped! Going to drown!_ Awareness reclaimed him with a single convulsion of every muscle in his body, and he discovered with more relief than alarm that he was in fact restrained, since the cool bend of porcelain at his neck kept his head above water, and underwater the wide bands of cloth around his forearms kept him moored to the side of . . . whatever type of pool he was in. The water was sumptuously warm, and someone . . someone else was. . . . 

"So, you're awake," she observed, with smile in her voice. 

". . Mistress," he rasped, and let himself relax another fraction. The blindfold was still in place, but he could feel her standing next to him, in the water. 

"Yes, Xellos; I'm very proud of you," she affirmed, and he felt another ounce of anxiety drain from him. "It's time for you to rest and recover for a little while, and then I'll teach you a little more . . and you won't be going back in the cold room again." 

He gasped with relief, and felt her fingers on his lips before he could thank her. 

"Don't speak," she said. "Drink. . . ." He felt a cold glass rim where her fingers had been, and then there was cool fresh water . . he drank as much as he was permitted, and after the vessel was taken away he felt her hands moving over his body, under the water, kneading heat and life back into the starved, stiff muscles. The cold was leached out of him like a poison, and when the water had settled in his stomach, he felt something round and smooth on his mouth-- 

A grape . . . he took it eagerly, and heard his Mistress chuckle. Then her hands returned to the deep, slow massage underwater. His breathing slowed as he permitted himself full relaxation, and his consciousness dimmed to a haze, except when he was fed another morsel of fruit or cheese, or a mouthful of water, at his Mistress' discretion. Presently he began to feel less exhausted and more sleepy. 

_Zelas, I'm not going to die. Thank You, Zelas! Thank You. . . ._

He felt her moving in the water, and wondered how deep it was; he could not reach the bottom himself. A smooth thigh brushed his arm, and he felt her rough, deep strokes against the muscles of his back and sides, migrating forward to the ones over his filling stomach, and down his abdomen. Predictably, she ended at his groin, but she was very gentle when she got there--so gentle, he woke himself up slightly, wondering if she were even touching him at all. She . . . tickled, somehow, tiny featherlight strokes in perfect sync and motion with the rise and fall of the water. He squirmed experimentally, and heard her laugh. She guided his legs apart gently; he felt that, but then . . . was she touching him, or not? It was a little unnerving. His organ had decided she was touching him, and he felt pressure building there. He felt--he almost felt--he thought he felt her fingers test the firmness of his shaft, momentarily, but then they were gone. Then there was a tantalizing flicker of sensation at the head, which might have been a fingertip or merely an eddy. . . . It was maddening. He felt the rush of blood and familiar pang in the region which meant he was satisfactorily erect. Xellos squirmed from the ache. 

_I can't be close to the surface, or I'd be poking through it,_ he realized. Her hand squeezed his buttocks, bore up the weight of his hips. She would not let him close his thighs. 

"Beautiful Xellos, beautiful," Mistress murmured. He sighed, and felt her hands very slowly leave him floating in place, then the stirring of the water as she moved through it. Where--? 

She touched his face, smoothed his hair back from the blindfold. 

"They're going to love you . . . you'll be absolutely perfect," she added absently, as her fingertips traveled along his jawline, and very carefully she opened his mouth. Softness brushed his cheek, and he was offered a small wet nodule of steam-scented flesh. He closed his lips hard on the nipple, drew it in and rasped his tongue across its surface, and began to suckle with a whimper of ecstasy. He felt the woman's deep chuckle through her chest. She disengaged experimentally, drawing back to just outside his reach, and let him continue to kiss and lick at her teat before returning it to him. Underwater, he twisted his hips; he was painfully rigid, and the water could not alleviate the weight he felt on his testes, but he bore it gladly. 

With the blindfold, there was no way to tell how long he spent in the water, recovering; it seemed at once too long a time, and too brief. He slept, he woke, he was fed and handled and petted. In retrospect it seemed not much longer than two or three days before his Mistress woke him with a touch and the news that it was "time to get out." 

One at a time, she neatly unlaced his arms from the cloth restraints and guided them to the smooth rim of the pool, where he clung with an anxious grip. He felt her leave the water, and a moment later she bent over him and slid her hands under his shoulder blades. With one good heave, she birthed him over the smooth porcelain edge and balanced him on his hips, with her arm around his shoulders. 

"Keep your legs together, Xellos," she advised. "That's it--now turn--" 

_Oh Zelas, don't let me fall,_ he prayed. _ Don't let me break my neck. Oh Zelas I don't want to die!_ He was tense all over with the fear of being dropped, still blindfolded and keenly aware of how slippery he still was, but before he could fall back in the water, she swept up his legs with a strong arm and swung him free. "Let go of the edge, Xellos," she coached. "Hold onto me." Tentatively and with much trembling, he forced himself to release the rim of the pool, and reached toward her voice as far as he trusted his balance. She caught his arm and latched it onto her shoulder, and with a sudden wash of security and confidence, he found himself simply sitting on the edge of the pool, holding his Mistress. 

"I'm not going to drop you, Xellos; don't be so tense," she advised. "Trust me, and you'll realize you're perfectly safe," she coaxed. "Now lower your legs . . further . . further . . now, we _hop--_" and with a sudden shove just above his buttocks, she nudged him forward off the edge. He fell only about ten inches and she caught him with a strong arm across his chest when he stumbled forward; then he clung to her again until his balance returned and the momentary terror faded. "See, I wouldn't let you fall," he heard her saying. "You still have a lot to learn, Xellos." And he felt her buckle the collar around his neck again. 

She led him a few steps to a dry area of floor--it felt like wood--and put him through an effective series of postures meant to stretch and strengthen his body as she handled him, spotting faithfully with one hand and kneading, stroking, tickling with the other. He was growing quite accustomed to her touch; parts of him anticipated it eagerly, visibly-- 

"_Very good,_ Xellos," he heard her smile when his member approached the state she preferred most within the first few minutes of stretching and handling. Her hand was there a moment later, testing its rigidity, improving on it. Very gently she weighed the heft of his scrotum and teased him to throbbing hardness with a few touches. He froze in place, not certain what to do. 

". . . Mistress . ?" he stammered hesitantly. 

"Be still, Xellos; you're doing everything right," she answered, and bent him backwards until his spine cracked. "When you're properly tuned, you won't need handling to be presentable." Still holding both his arms above his head, she slid him down into a kneeling position and fastened wide leather cuffs around his wrists again, since he was quite dry by that point. "Remember the posture I taught you," she prompted, and when she released his arms he dropped them behind his back, splayed his knees until he felt the tension in his thigh muscles, and bowed his head timidly. He heard her pace a circle around him; his sense of touch, so much more acute than in his mazoku body, still amazed him with incredibly delicate sensations: the subtle flexing of the floor she walked on, the tiny hairs on his neck stirred by the wake of her passage though the air. 

"Hmm. Xellos, show me your balls," she instructed, and he remembered to incline his hips (how could he have forgotten?). "--No, I still can't see," Mistress reported, and he tipped his pelvis up further. "Now, you can do better than that. Put some effort into it!" she urged, and in desperation he pushed his thighs wider, bowed his spine out behind him and had to touch his fingertips to the floor to balance as he struggled to comply. She paced another circle. 

"Much better. Balance on your toes, Xellos," she coached, and when he'd taken that little weight off his arms, she took and folded them above his shoulders, with his hands resting on the back of his neck. "This is arms-up, Xellos. Hold it--no, just relax. Let yourself be graceful. This is arms-up; remember that. And this is arms-down." She took his hands off the back of his neck and clasped them behind him. "It's very simple and you're such a fast learner, Xellos . . . now, arms-up--" 

A little tentatively, he raised his arms and folded his hands on the back of his neck. 

"Very good, Xellos," she murmured, and he felt her touch the ring on his collar-attaching the lead again. Then she lifted his hands from the back of his neck and swiftly wrapped a few lengths of the leash around his wrists, binding them close to his neck, and drew him to his feet. "This way, now," she directed, leading him forward a few steps. "It's time you had another nice licking." The handle of the leash was looped over a hook or similar projection on the wall, just above his height, so that he had to keep his chin raised above his tethered wrists. He whimpered as she positioned his legs, gave his swollen genitals a final fondle. 

"Oh, don't be afraid, Xellos; It's not going to be that hard," his Mistress scoffed, and he felt the strap come down across his buttocks first. "Just be glad I bound you, first." Another blow, across the thighs. She proceeded to beat him with remarkable efficiency from shoulders to knees, never striking harder than was necessary to make his skin glow with heat, and again she lectured as he gasped and flinched. 

"You will only be beaten on three occasions, Xellos: the first is when your performance is less than acceptable--you see now why it's important to keep that magnificent tool of yours at attention. The second occasion--turn around--" Trying not to tremble, he let himself be turned with his back toward the cool wall, and she continued the assault. "The second occasion," --he gasped and quivered as stripes fell across his ribs-- "like now, is to make a task easier for you. A good beating will erase pride even more than fear; pride is a poison to you, Xellos, it can only do you harm, here." She kicked his legs apart and he braced himself against the wall and the leash as she began to raise welts along his thighs. The muscles in his back and buttocks quivered with the tension. "The third occasion is for the pleasure of others, because you are so beautiful, Xellos--and it's worth a little pain to please them, isn't it?" she cooed convincingly, and Xellos gritted his teeth. 

"Isn't it, Xellos?" she prompted, and hesitantly, he nodded--and gasped again when she gathered up his testicles in one hand and pulled his hips forward again. "Yes--and this is where you will never, ever be harmed: the most delicate part of a man. It's highly taboo to damage a slave there, virtually unforgivable." 

_A--a slave?_ he thought, difficult though it was with an attractive woman holding his manfruits. _ Ah. . . I suppose I am. . . . But at least--_

"Now brace yourself, love," she warned him, released his balls and took hold of the head of his cock instead. Xellos had little time to panic before he felt the fine leather switch lashing the shaft of his erection again. He cried out, and his whole body jerked at the leash. 

"Shhhh, be still," Mistress scolded. "If you can't behave yourself, it'll just go on longer, is that what you want?" 

Xellos bit his lip and wept into the blindfold. His thighs and abdominal muscles clenched with each stinging stripe from the switch as he struggled to keep his posture. Then, suddenly as before, it was over. His skin seemed to blaze with heat, but his Mistress' hands were cool. 

"There, we're done," she told him, and let him down on his knees after releasing him from the wall. She unwound the lead from his wrists, and almost automatically he tucked them behind his back in her favorite kneeling position. "Now, we're going to leave this room in a minute, Xellos, so it's time to start teaching you etiquette." 

Xellos was wondering miserably why he was still blindfolded. 

"You won't have realized this, but since your body is only about a week old, it has no calluses," his Mistress told him. "Your feet are as soft as your hands; they'd split open and bleed if you tried walking on them normally. In addition to that, you could injure yourself seriously if you fell from standing height, and no one wants that . . . so you will be getting around on all fours." 

_Crawling? I have to** crawl?**_ He almost wept again. 

"It distributes your weight evenly, and you won't fall," Mistress was saying. "Someday when you've had enough experience, you'll be able to walk upright with a blindfold, but that won't be for a while. Now, on all fours, Xellos," she prompted, and he went down on his hands and knees, literally too beaten to object. "And remember the second lesson, by all means; if you can't keep yourself adequately hard I'll spank you like before." He felt her hand on his buttocks, on his hair and blindfold, and then a tug on the leash. He followed tentatively, hating himself for blushing. 

"Keep your head down," she said, and immediately he bent his face forward. "And it's very important that you keep up and stay as close to me as you can. I can't afford to walk slowly for your benefit." He was led forward until he felt her calf graze his head, then a rush of air as a door opened, and he could hear the murmur of foot traffic. "Here we go!" 

The air of the corridor was summer-warm, and scented faintly with the outdoors. He could feel the breeze of everyone who passed them in the hall, and fought the terrible distraction, trying to focus on the tension of the lead. Zelas forbid he should cause a scene, and make Mistress angry with him. . . . She walked so swiftly, he barely remembered to keep his head down as he scrambled to keep up. He could hear life happening in the hallways, people greeting each other and making small talk before going their ways; nothing out of the ordinary, but completely new and different to him through human senses. Mistress paused in her path, and suddenly, Xellos realized what he was missing. 

_I have no astral sense,_ it occurred to him with a shock. _ None . . . or very little. . . . Humans go to the astral plane to dream, right? They must have **some** rudimentary sense of--_

Lost in his anxieties, he hadn't noticed the instant his Mistress had resumed walking, and the leash was growing taut. He started forward hastily and was dealt a sharp swat on the rear by some passer-by, who laughed when Xellos squeaked with surprise and ran face-first into the back of Mistress' leg. 

"Pay attention, Xellos," she scolded, and permitted him no slack in the leash after that. He intensified his efforts to focus on her progress, blocking out all other stimuli, until she stopped sharply on the right and the draft of an opening door surprised him. 

"Here we are," Mistress announced as she led him in. There was a faint sweet smell to the room, and the floor was layered with a number of deep, soft rugs, but she gave him little time to appreciate them. He was led into the room, to what he believed was the foot of a bed, from his shoulder brushing against it, and commanded to stand with a firm tug on the ring in his collar. As soon as he was unsteadily on his feet, she took hold of his right wrist, extended his arm out and up to about the height of his head (when he caught his balance), and he felt a sturdy metal cuff snap shut around the soft leather one on his forearm. She manacled his left arm in like fashion, very quickly, and by the time he realized what she was about, his arms were immobile and she was seeing to his ankles. The restraints for his legs had their own leather pads, and gave only slightly more slack. All four cuffs seemed to be secured by chain. 

Alarm flared behind Xellos' wishbone, and he trembled despite himself. 

"Ahh, there we go," Mistress sighed happily, grazing his length with her fingertips. She coiled the leash loosely around his neck, and reached behind his head to remove the blindfold. As she stepped back from his field of vision, he was presented with another terrible shock. 

Nearly the whole room was the color of a bone, or a seashell. Before him was a dresser with a three-quarters-length vanity mirror, and behind him was a canopy bed without a canopy, but with a frame of sturdy steel, and many rings, clips, and fastening opportunities within the design. On his right was the wall with the window, and a single French door opening on a garden path; on his left was the wall with the door he'd come through, next to which was a cot against the wall, and a wardrobe almost beyond his range of sight. 

What he feared worst was in the mirror. It was himself, enfleshed--human, mortal. It was the confirmation of all he'd dreaded since his arrival. 

_Zelas, I'm mortal! Zelas, preserve me!_ he panicked inwardly, and would have squirmed away from the reflection if he could have done, but his mistress intervened quickly. 

"Xellos, eyes down!" she commanded, tipping his head for him, and the terrifying vision left him. He still had to contend with the sight of his own vulnerable white flesh and grotesquely engorged organs. 

_Zelas, why do I have this body? ** What am I doing here?**_ In this bondage, he could be eviscerated with little effort, and had no opportunity at all to prevent it. He was distracted very suddenly when Mistress slapped him in the face. 

"You're going to be very calm," she told him, standing directly in the way of his reflection and holding his face by the ears. "In fact, you're going to be relieved and grateful that your mistress cares enough to chain you down. And if you insist on disobeying me further, I will beat you red as a lobster, and you will sleep where you stand, is that very clear?" 

"Yes, very clear. Mistress," Xellos mumbled, wide-eyed in the face of a threat more immediate than mortality, and remarkably, she embraced him, cupping his meats carefully in one hand to provide arousal, rather than accidental consummation. He was well aware of her breasts against his ribs. 

"Xellos, you are inventing all your own fears. You don't know it right now, but you are quite as safe here as you are in your mother's arms. And you know how safe it is there . . . right?" she concluded, teasing his nipple with her tongue as she turned the bright corner of her eye up at him. 

"Yes . . Mistress," he answered, distracted now by the sensation from his teat, forking up at his neck and shooting directly down to his groin, where pleasure was swiftly growing painful again. His mistress' free hand slipped up his back, under his shoulder, and around his neck beneath the collar. He could feel the large vein there surging under her touch, and suddenly it seemed much more pleasant to bow his head to her. Xellos sighed. 

"You like being touched, don't you, Xellos." 

"Yes, Mistress," he responded absently. Her occupied hand had slid up to play on his abdomen until it ceased to twitch with paranoia, then down to the purple fuzz around the broad root of his rigid member. Without realizing it, he leaned forward into her touch, and took a sharp breath when she nipped very gently with her teeth at his other teat, then kissed it flat. Her fingertip slid into the sensitive spot beneath his ear and behind the jawbone, and he felt a wave of gooseflesh sweep his back. 

"And you'll do your very best for me, won't you?" she appealed, leaning still closer against the length of his body, and another bolt of pleasure shot through him as her hand wrapped around the base of his erection. 

"Always, Mistress," he murmured, bending his head further down toward hers, and her hand began to slide slowly, with increasing pressure, along his hard shaft. 

"That's my good boy," she said, and pulled his lips down to meet her at the same time her hand reached the head of his cock. He uttered a small whimper at the sensation, and gasped suddenly as she grasped him harder. "Hold on," his mistress warned with a tiny smirk, and began to work him in earnest. Xellos gripped the chains holding him to the bedframe as his head reeled and his hips began to rock forward into her grip. She wasn't teasing this time--his member swelled further and grew an even deeper shade of red as she brought him closer to . . something. . . . He was sensing a hazardous cusp, the approach of an obliterating culmination, and moaning between gasps when very suddenly she let go and pulled away. 

"Now look, Xellos! See how beautiful you are-!" she commanded, and automatically he raised his head to the mirror. 

He saw a gracile, purple-haired man chained up to the foot of a bed; drops of sweat gave an erotic texture to his pale skin as he writhed and trembled under the burden of the oncoming ecstasy. His organ was imposing indeed, at such a size and color he might have feared something was wrong with him at any other time, and so rigid as to indicate even the slightest motion of his hips. She had a point; he could identify with the pleasure of the sight of an attractive human bound in torment, but at the moment he didn't feel it helped his own situation much. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as the view struck him a little harder than intended, and his pelvis continued to pump into the air of its own volition. Something was . . . he felt her fingertips on the engorged head of his penis once more as some mysterious fluid welled forth, just a little, and felt her play for a moment at smoothing it beneath his foreskin and down the shaft. A choked moan broke out of him. 

"There are many here who will prefer to see you just at this stage, so you ought to get used to it," Mistress warned. "But, today--" she cut herself off by leaning up against him again and taking a determined hold on his straining member, and suddenly Xellos felt truly helpless. It seemed a slow explosion was taking place there, and although he felt unable to control the rhythmic thrusting of his own body as the wave came to a crest, it was nothing compared to the violent reflex his mistress invoked as the wave crashed. He came with a great cry, uncertain whether pain or death would accompany the delirium-colored pleasure flooding his nerves, and the next thing he knew he was hanging exhausted and dizzy in the chains with Mistress addressing him. 

"Are you all right? Can you hear me?" 

"Huh? . . . uh," he grunted weakly. 

So,_ that_ was why humans were always having sex. 

". . . because if you faint after coming, you might be sent to the infimary, which is no fun at all," Mistress was saying. "Although you'd hardly be the first," she added with a smile. She scrubbed his come off her hand with a handkerchief--real semen, not the thin watery stuff his body had shed as a mazoku--and took hold of the glands responsible for it as she leaned back up against him. 

"There are still things you need to know," she told him, and proceeded to stroke the small stinging welts on his back and buttocks at the same time she massaged his scrotum, throughout her lecture. It was excruciating in almost every sense of the word. "One is that, if you come without permission, you'll be severely punished. Do you understand?" 

"Y--yes, Mistress," he nodded. 

"Another is that you must be hard and ready at all times. This is very important; if your performance is required and you're not ready, again, you may face torment beyond your worst nightmares," she instructed him in a calming, matter-of-fact voice, and slid her hand up from his balls to the root of his member. "Don't look so worried--men get a grace period after an orgasm," she smiled. "But if you come before you're wanted, you'll be punished, and if you can't harden yourself, you may be sent to the infirmary. Ah, and one last thing," she added. Xellos' heart was pounding. He knew this game, yes, entirely too well, and all was exactly as he had feared. 

"You're not to use your hands," Mistress said. "Ever, for anything, unless you have a command or permission. --Or a terrible persistent itch on your face, perhaps," she finished with a note of levity. He felt another pang in his groin as she coaxed his organ to stand at attention. His arms and shoulders trembled minutely, and his knees felt flimsy. His mistress leaned her head against him for a long moment, playing games of pain and pleasure with his skin until he squirmed . . his heart still pounded; he felt as if he should scream or cry. . . . 

"That's all I remember right now, I'm afraid," she said suddenly, lifting her head with a smile. "Is there anything else you want to know, Xellos?" 

"Mistress," he began, and a considerable pause built up as he searched for the right words. 

"Yes . . ?" 

"I--I . . ." Finally the trembling overtook him, from his elbows to his knees, and he curled his face into his shoulder. "I'm _afraid_. . . ." 

His mistress immediately let go his tender areas and embraced him closely. 

"Oh, don't be, Xellos, it's pointless," she cooed. "I love you; everyone here loves you. You'll know it every time they touch you, that you're loved. There's no danger," she reaffirmed. "Do you need me to beat you again?" she asked, but the apprehension in his face gave her a better idea. "Maybe just a spanking," she grinned, and ran over to rummage through one of the dresser drawers. "Ah, here we are," she announced, pulling out what appeared to be a round, white wooden paddle about the size of a pancake. "Let's try this on." She returned to the bed and took a seat on the edge beside him, appraising his hips fore and aft before giving him an experimental smack across the buttocks. It was a much lighter and less damaging blow than with a strap, due to the spread of the impact. Mistress steadied his hips with one hand and commenced a steady spanking with the paddle. 

"How do you like that, Xellos?" she smiled. "Not everything here is threats and beatings. Most of it is just play," she added. Xellos didn't know what to think, but according to what he could see in the mirror, he liked it very much. It became a particularly effective spanking when her hand crept around and between his legs, to steady him by his scrotum. She leaned a little closer. "Then there's always the classic way. . . ." she murmured, and after dropping the paddle on the bed, she continued to spank him with her bare hand. 

_This,_ Xellos was familiar with; it was one of Zelas' oldest and more favorite methods. Presently he was gasping and blushing as his mistress chuckled and spanked, but all too soon she quit. 

"Whew, that wears your arms out," she remarked. "And I think it's time we went to lunch, by now." 


End file.
